Conversations start with something interesting to say delivered in an interesting way – Part 3

yawn

YAWN!

A yawn is never a good way to start a conversation. As the first two posts in this three-part series pointed out, the way you start the conversation is as important as the content (part 1 and part 2).

I've not tried to be exhaustive in describing some of the multimedia formats you might adopt in starting your conversation, and the posts to date have covered video, animation and a call-to-action microsite. I wanted to finish with an interactive website employing a game to draw visitors in to the key messages; draw them in to thinking about the issues; excite them about propogating the message.

Just needed to find one I really liked.

Fortunately, I was Haymarket Brand Media's guest at the Revolution Awards at the Grosvenor, London, on Friday evening (thanks again for inviting me Matthew), and now I don't need to look any further.

Winner of the Automotive category 2009 is Problem Playground by Collective for Honda.

honda%20game%20screenshot%20www.problemplayground.com

I'll quote the awards' brochure:

"Judges thought that Honda's 'Problem Playground' campaign was a great way to launch a new car, being both fun and engaging, as well as showing outstanding attention to detail.

A key focus of Honda's passion for innovative engineering is to benefit the environment, and with this in mind, the car marque wanted to increase the sales oof its Civic Hybrid model.

The campaign focused on increasing traffic to a website that featured a 'problem playground', inviting users to solve puzzles. The digital activity aimed to closely associate Honda with the idea of finding cost efficiencies and environmental solutions by inviting users to move the pieces of an online puzzlein order to reveal information.

The campaign delivered 140,000 unique users to the landing page, with consumers spending on average of 2.5 minutes on the site. Those driven to the site spent time with the content, with an average of eight pages being viewed per visit. In total, 5,500 hours were spent on the site.

Judges said there were lots of puzzles for people to solve, with impressive integration of voice-over messages. They concluded that the campaign was an innovative way for the brand to communicate its messages on problem solving and the environment."

But this post would not be complete without pointing you to another award winner from Friday evening. Congratulations to Chris Applegate and the team at Outside Line for winning Best Website for the Cravendale site. It's been interesting reading Chris' posts on MarCom Professional as the Cravendale site came together, and now it has achieved the accolade it deserves!

milkmatters

What better way to finish this post but to check out the Cravendale sister site at www.makethetea.com, get the kettle on, make a brew and think about how you'd like to start your conversation in an interesting way.

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Image source: Jonathan D. Blundell